Today I’m writing this from Treehive Cafe & Play, where I’m trying to get work done on the laptop while letting the Little Mr play. We’ve been out and about since 7am this morning (renovations – more below) , going to Waffle House for breakfast, then to Target to pick up a birthday card and a bunch of things I didn’t actually need, and then to the mall to kill time at the play area there and buy a gift for the aforementioned birthday… and now I’m here. I tried knitting at the mall, but we’re still in that independent but not stage where I get maybe 5 minutes at a time before I have to put everything down and be dragged to see whatever it was he wants to show me. I think the only reason I’m getting away with writing today is because he can climb and look out a plastic porthole thingy to see me sitting at the table, so he can check in with me without actually coming to me. Sigh Motherhood is hard.

Anyway. Renovations are underway at the house, so everything is dusty and smelly and literally a mess. We’re turning the downstairs closet into a half bathroom (our old house just has 1 bathroom with 4 bedrooms), and while plumbing was being ran to that side of the house we went ahead and had them install a 2nd floor laundry so I can stop going to the basement for laundry. And then, after all that’s done, they’re tearing apart our full bathroom to gut it and redo it. Which is a much needed endeavor but is an even bigger project that I’m not looking forward to as far as the process goes. We’re looking at probably another 2 weeks of this mess at least and I know it will be worth it in the end, but goodness this is really a lot of mess. My cleaning supplies and linens are piled up in the craft room and the clutter is driving me crazy. There’s a layer of dust all over everything – I can’t touch a surface without feeling the grit all over it. Ugh.

In the meantime, while I have all this junk out and cluttering things up, I’m trying to downsize yet again. Do I really need a wreath for every holiday/season? Do I really need to decorate for Valentine’s Day? Can’t some of this stuff be dual- or even multi-purpose? Do I even need to decorate at all? It all just ends up a mess on the floor from the kid, anyway. So off it goes in a box destined for the Goodwill. I’m streamlining my cleaning products, too, and I’m trying to go for the more natural options with vinegar, baking soda, and some essential oils (I have some vanilla oil meant for lotions that I paired with orange for cleaning, and lavender oil with the vanilla for my wool dryer balls). I’m liking it all so far, and on the upside there’s no headaches from all those heavy harsh chemical versions I’ve been using.

Sunday, we spent a good portion of the day cleaning the house. Literally. When I put my new furniture out I realized how awful and dirty the siding and trim was, so I grabbed a bucket and some soap and scrubbed the whole thing down.

A smarter person would have just rented a power washer… I am not smart, sometimes.

But the porch looks a thousand times better and cleaner. I bought some lanterns at Joanns that were 70% off, and I think I’m going to hang them above the table to give some nice lighting once it starts getting darker earlier.

Tour de Fleece began on the 1st, and while I missed out on spinning on Saturday I’ve been making up for it the rest of the weekend. I finished a bobbin of some teal that was in progress on Sunday, and then Monday I spent part of my morning spinning the other half on the porch. I’m working on my long draw method to get faster singles. Normally I’ve been an inchworm, pulling small amounts of fiber out of the fluff inch by inch to keep my yarn somewhat consistent. But this puts a strain on my wrists and takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r. The long draw thing lets me just kind of pull my whole arm backward and let the twisting single do a lot of the work. Much faster.

I probably won’t spin every single day of the tour, but I like that it gives me a push to use my wheel more. I’ve actually considered getting rid of my wheel – I messaged the girls in my knit group to see if anyone wanted to somewhat semi-permanently borrow it. The thing had sat for almost a year without being used and I saw no end to the perpetual fight with the kid over getting time to myself to use it. Thankfully, my lovely friends talked me out of it, and (also thankfully) I’ve tried to start forcing “me” time to spin. Now if I can just get someone to force me to knit the yarn I spin up… it’s all so pretty in the skein and no pattern ever seems worthy of it. Which is silly, of course, because #1, I can always make more yarn and #2, there will always be a better pattern to come along that I’ll later wish I had made and #3, life is too short to make things and then not enjoy them. So that’s the next thing I need to start working on.

A few weeks ago the Peach Truck, as it is known, was supposed to visit our town. My best friend and I agreed to buy a box and split it, and when her husband went to buy them for us we were sorely disappointed to learn the truck broke down and wouldn’t be visiting our area at all. I had everything planned out to make – pie, jam, grilled with some pork… all of those plans were over.

Today at the local farmers market was a vendor who had Georgia peaches. And even getting there right around opening time the large boxes were still sold before I got to them. So, $10 later, I came home with about 10 really large, crazy delicious peaches. 7 of them are getting turned into small batch jam (salted brown sugar and sriracha, both from “Preserving by the Pint”), the kid and I ate one, and there is just two left. Maybe I’ll grill those.

It feels really good to be in the kitchen and doing what I used to love. I’m trying lately to really make an effort to not let the kid prevent me from, well, being me. It’s so easy to say “I can’t do that anymore because he always makes it harder” but he is getting better about things. And if I don’t take time out to do the things I love then I’m going to be a batshitcrazy nightmare to be around (which I’ve totally been these last few days). Also, the tv makes an excellent babysitter when need be, and any parent who says otherwise is lying. :)

Welcome

Pardon the garden. A phrase I’m most likely to utter anytime anyone visits the house during the growing seasons of spring through fall. Sure, there are pretty flowers and delicious veggies in there somewhere, but they might be a little hard to find amidst the mess of overgrown grass, dandelions, and weeds that have found their way in there and haven’t been pulled. Read On